


the Hero of the story

by pigeonstatueconundrum



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Timeline, Character Death, Dubious use of magic, F/M, M/M, Pining, Quentin's discipline, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 10:57:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18342263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pigeonstatueconundrum/pseuds/pigeonstatueconundrum
Summary: “Didn’t you ever wonder.” Fogg muses, leaning towards Eliot, “why you all rallied around Mr Coldwater so quickly.”“He doesn’t have Margo’s leadership, Alice’s aptitude for knowledge, Julia’s raw power, Penny’s skill, Kady’s resilience or even your own...charisma.”“It’s… Well.. he’s Quentin.” Eliot mutters weakly.“He’s Quentin.” Fogg repeats, swirling the Brandy with a flicker of amusement at the answer.“The gods love a story, Eliot. And this one, this one is a doozy. 38 resets and we still can’t find a satisfying enough third act.”_Quentin isn't as Disciplineless as everyone thinks. It's Time loop 39 and Eliot is trying to find ways to be closer to Quentin even as it seems everyone else is leaving him.





	the Hero of the story

 

**Timeline 39**

 

“You and your first-year boys.”

 

Eliot startles, looking up at Margo. From his position on her lap, her teeth look very sharp as she smirks over at the pair seated on other side of the Physical Cottage.

 

Quentin is shyly tucking a strand of Alice’s hair behind her ear, talking mile a minute about some stupendously nerdy bullshit. At least Eliot assumes it is, he’s been fruitlessly trying to eavesdrop on what’s being said for the past ten minutes with no luck.

 

“What can I say,” Eliot deflects, “I’m very visual.”

 

And Quentin Coldwater makes a very pretty visual. All lost lamb wandering around the grounds on his first day. Flirting with Q had been easier than breathing and just as sweet.  Being his friend has proved to be a more daunting prospect. He found himself sharing some shockingly vulnerable secrets with Q very quickly. perhaps that’s a believable reason why he feels so protective over the high-strung super nerd.  Although that doesn’t explain that tiny unexamined voice in the back of his head that seems to insist he’s missed the boat on something. 

 

“What happened to divide and conquer.” Eliot complains, motioning lazily to Alice as who is smiling at Q over her book.

 

Margo huffs, pretty in her affront, “I did my very, very best, believe me.”

 

She fixes Eliot with a look that says she knows exactly what he’s doing. “But you don’t interfere with a hundred percent sugary sweet puppy love like that.”

 

They both watch as Alice talks Q through the motions of Popper No. 6. Her delight as he completes the motion correctly is genuine, seemingly despite herself. Q smiles at her as if she hangs the moon.  

 

“Enough to give you toothache.” Eliot mutters, turning away.

 

“Aww.” Margo coos, patting his head, “Are you sure that’s toothache or just butterflies in your stomach.”

 

Eliot slaps her hand in mock outrage, “Bambi, for shame!”

 

“I kind of get it.” Margo admits. She leans close to his ear, her voice low and a little embarrassed.  “He’s just so earnest. He’s so stupid excited about all this shit you kinda feel that _rubbing off_ on you.”

 

Eliot squints up at her, eyes narrowing. The tip of her tongue is sticking out between her teeth, mocking him.

 

“I hate you.” he says sitting up, letting Margo escape. “I never want to see you again”

 

 “Okay.” She agrees, “I finish class at 11,”

 

She kisses his knuckles. Not in apology, never in that. They’re beyond anything so pedestrian. “Bring me coffee?”

 

Eliot rolls his eyes but lets her go. He doesn’t have any classes until 3 and can live like a king until then. The whole of Brakebills his domain to do with as pleases. He remains on the sofa and watches Quentin.

 

Quentin and Alice are joint by Julia, probably been off petitioning Fogg to let her join the second-year classes again. Might not be bad, he muses, as Quentin smiles in naked affection at the two women. Where Julia goes Q is sure to follow.  

 

Q looks over, the smile on his lips fading as he catches Eliot’s appraising stare. Heart in his throat, Eliot waves a hand in practised lethargy. Not too eager, just enough to acknowledge the peons. But Quentin’s face lights up and he motions Eliot to come over and join them. His smile is so open and sweet. Eliot hates it.

 

They all look so cosy. Alice pretending, she isn’t interested in what the others are saying. Julia laughing at something Penny, who has oh so casually come into the cottage and is oh so casually leaning against the sofa to talk to her, is saying. And Quentin sitting in the middle of it all, already scrambling to make space between Alice’s books and Julia’s coat for Eliot.

 

 _Well, It would be rude not too_ , Eliot reasons and crosses the room to Quentin’s side.

 

-

  

“So why am I here?”

 

Q chokes and the cheap wine he’s been necking strait from the bottle goes down the wrong way. There’s a brief interlude as Quentin sputters and coughs and Eliot tries and fails not to be charmed.

 

He’s still a little muzzy headed. having finished his own bottle he must have decided that the grass of the quad was a good place to take a nap. The back lawn of the cottage is illuminated by string of paper lanterns, giving everything a soft dreamlike glow. Staring up at Quentin’s flushed face Eliot is having trouble holding onto the series of events that lead them here.

 

“Because Margo wanted you to _‘witness her victory’_.” Quentin explains. Eliot tamps down on an honest to goodness giggle. Christ he’s further gone than he thought.

 

“I remember that, but why is Margo here.”

 

Quentin flops down next to Eliot on the grass. He turns to face him, his breath making the grass between their faces tremble, “Because she lost the bet that Julia couldn’t learn to fly by the end of the week.”

 

“Why did Julia bet that?”

 

Someone swoops overhead, shrieking with laughter. The movement makes the lanterns swing, the light swaying across their faces.

 

“Because Alice didn’t think it could be done.” Quentin says.

 

It’s coming back to him now, “And Alice was…”

 

“...Fighting with Penny, because he said if anyone could do it Julia could.” Quentin finishes. Eliot watches fascinated by undulating light illuminating parts of Q’s face. First his hair, then eyes, nose then lingering on the lips and then back again.

 

“And Kady backed her up.” Eliot says, inordinately more pleased to remember that than it really deserved.   

 

Quentin smiles back, “Yeah there you go.”

 

Eliot has a rule on not getting involved in other people’s bullshit. The whole Kady/Penny/Julia drama would be a prime example of that. As far as he’s concerned, Julia has two hands and should use them. But they are, somehow, his friends which makes him obliged to care about this stuff. At least he has a horse in the Q/Alice… thing. At least on days like this with Q smiling so sweetly, he can convince himself he does.

 

Limbs heavy with sleep, Eliot props himself up on his elbow and to get a better look at Quentin.

 

Quentin blushes under his regard, “What?”

 

“Why are _you_ here?” Eliot jokes.

 

Quentin blinks up at him, the easy smile gone. Eliot shivers as the air pressure seems to drop. How could he have let himself forget the insecurities and fear that are a part of Q all his unabashed love of fantasy. 

 

His reaction is instinctual, desperate to fix what he’d done, “Hey, Hey I’m sorry. Q I’m sorry. I didn’t mean.”

 

“You’re right though.” Q whispers, Eliot must move closer to hear him, ignoring the tiny voice in his head that screams danger. Why has it gotten so cold?  “Why _am_ I here?”

 

Eliot shushes him trying to make his slurring voice soft and gentle.  Quentin isn’t breathing right, the pants of air he does manage to exhale is icy cold across Eliot face. A lantern overhead dims with a rapid pop. In the sudden gloom he can’t see Quentin’s face, can only hear his lungs straining for air.

 

“You have every right to be here, it’s okay.” Eliot promises. He’s babbling, just letting the words come the heart that only wants to see Quentin happy. He grabs Q’s stiff fingers and presses them to his own chest, where his own heart is pulsing rabbit fast.

 

He counts down from five, letting Q’s frantic breathing catch up to his, “Breath for me, that’s it.”

 

The last of the evening warmth returns with Q’s equilibrium. The lanterns flare back to life, illuminating the deep red of Quentin’s embarrassment. But he doesn't take his hands away from where Eliot still them has trapped between his chest and fingers.

 

“I’m really drunk, I’m sorry El.” he whispers.

 

Eliot’s own heart is beating so fast, he’s petrified at what Quentin will be able to divine from it. The alcohol and panic attack have taken its toll on Quentin. He lies exhausted against Eliot’s chest.

 

“You know what I think.” Eliot offers, tentatively moving an arm to wrap over Quentin’s back. “I think the skin, you know, of the group.”

 

Even though he’s thoroughly exhausted, Quentin manages to fix Eliot with an exasperated stare. “The skin?”

 

“Yeah you hold us all together.” Eliot reminds his future self to blame it on the alcohol and strokes a soothing hand over Quentin’s back.

 

Quentin giggles, “You are so drunk” he laughs, but he snuggles closer.

 

They rest together, letting the sound of the breeze and the flicker of the lights flow over them. Eventually Eliot becomes aware of the cries and shouts of joy from their friends. The outside world permeating their brief little bubble.

 

Eventually Q’s breathing eases and Eliot can let himself relax. As slowly as he can, Eliot wiggles his other hand free and cradles Quentin’s face.   

 

“You have nice skin though.” he murmurs his thumb a whisper of pressure against Quentin cheek.

 

-

 

Eliot can’t concentrate in class. This is not unusual, Professor Van der Weghe has never been the most engaging of lecturers. Margo is glaring at him across the classroom, but even her leg is unconsciously jiggling under the desk.

 

To sit and do nothing after finding out that Fillory is real is ridiculous. Who cares about the Familiar Treaty of Stockholm or The 18th century expansion of the Silk Road when there is a fucking Beast on the loose who knows Quentin’s name.

 

He should have stayed in the Cottage with him. At least Alice is with him, cold comfort as that's been before, now Eliot is all Team Alice if it means Q is not alone.

 

An explosion rocks the room throwing everyone into to shocked silence. For a second Eliot sees the intricate spider webs of wards flare to life around them. A pulse of green flows through them before fading away. The room is remains silent waiting for the other shoe to drop, even Van der Weghe looks lost for words.

 

A scream rends the shocked silence. Eliot is already on his feet running out of the hall towards the sound. He doesn’t need to turn to check that Margo is right behind him.

 

The wards are still visible on the edge of the campus. The sickly green radiating out from a jagged hole in which the outside world can be seen. Kady is standing by the hole, one foot on each side. Her usually impassive face is slack in horror staring at the carnage around her.

 

The Van Pelt Fountain is in rubble, bits of jagged stone thrown across the quad. Woof’s head is lodged in the grass, water displaced from the fountain soaking into the torn up turf. The only motion in the horrific tableau is a slim woman is running towards the hole in the wards, clutching a box.

 

The only thing between her and escape is a crumpled figure, the red of her blood unmistakable even from the stairs. Eliot is launching himself over the banister but Quentin is quicker. He’s already cradling the blonde head to his chest, raw sobs shaking his frame.

 

Eliot squats down trying to touch Q’s shoulder. His useless fingers won’t cooperate, and Q shakes him off.

 

He’s just saying her name over and over. Not heeding the blood that's soaking into his already wet clothes.

 

“Q.” Eliot tries to pull him away more gently this time, “You have to stop. Q she’s...”

 

Quentin look up, right through Eliot.

 

Eliot flinches as a puddle of water freezes, the tiny barbs of ice sticking to his already numb fingers. Quentin doesn’t notice, his attention is solely for the figures materialising in the quad.

 

Penny’s feet have barely touched the sodden ground before he’s pursuing the escaping woman.

 

“Penny.” Quentin calls.

 

But the Traveller only has eyes for Kady. She’s still standing at the gap, the stranger tugging at her sleeve to pull her away, unable to move in either direction.

 

“Penny.” Q repeats, louder this time.

 

Something in his tone gets Penny attention and he blinks down at the other man as if in a trance.

 

“Get her to the healers, you need to take her she’s….” he gulps for air. The trembles have gotten more violent.

 

“I…” Penny reaches for the bodies limp arm unquestioningly. He blinks, shaking as if coming back to himself, “Q, there’s nothing they can do for her.”

 

“You don’t know that.” Q insists. “You have to try, she can’t be...”

 

The sobs are too much, and he collapses in on himself. Letting her fingers fall from his. Eliot can only pull him in and hold him. No counting breaths can calm him now. The fragile body in his arms contains the storm and Eliot can only try to weather it.

 

 

-

 

 

“Julia.”

 

Q pulls away from the couch. From where he’d been pressed again him on the couch, Eliot’s mind, always fogged with the desire of _closer yet not close enough_ , takes a second to clear. He catches up in the second it takes for Margo to stifle her gasp at the patch of skin Julia was desperately trying to cover. Starbursts of black ink hiding in vain between the span of her trembling fingers

 

“They have knowledge, Q.” Julia says, refusing to give quarter as Quentin advances. “If we’re going to fight Plover we need all the help we can get.”

 

“Kady is with them, Q she…” Her list of excuses die out as Quentin tugs her arm free letting her crimes be displayed to all assembled, the skin still red with new ink.

 

 “You’re working with them?” Margo crosses to Quentin’s side, a united front, “with Her…”

 

Despite the dire situation, it heartens Eliot to see Margo rally around Quentin, to see any of them have his back. The knowledge of the thirty-eight failed timelines has hit them all hard, but especially Quentin. The oppressive atmosphere in the cottage a bitter ache in the back of the throat. Only the violent ebb and flow of bottled emotions giving unnatural respite from the malaise. Before the they all have to reckon with the hole left in their rag tag group once their emotions return.

 

Eliot had spent hours with Q pressed against his side of this sofa desperately searching through the Fillory and Further books. Watching as his friends once dependable escape became just another in a long list of failures.

 

Margo would rotate around them, forever in Eliot’s orbit as he was in hers. This new satellite in her best friend’s sky had been accepted into the fold with no complaint. He wonders in all the timelines he ever gets to tell her how much he loves her as much as she deserve.

 

Even Penny, taciturn antisocial Penny, turns up to throw blankets over an exhausted Q and thrust granola bars at him. He’s spending less time in the cottage. Whatever ghosts he’s chasing don’t want to keep company with theirs. It hurts that a muttered order to get some rest from Penny can mean more to Q than any of Eliot’s exhausted entreaties ever could.

 

Only Julia had been distant. And yes now, with her standing in front of them with Hedgewitch tattoos and fingers flexing with guilt, that was an obvious warning. Eliot watches as Quentin swallows, the tendons in the delicate curve of his neck straining. What was that saying about red flags never looking so dangerous with rose tinted glasses.

 

Julia is standing firm only the wideness of her eyes and the speed of her words give her away. She’s scared that after all that Quentin’s been though, this is the last straw. That she, the one person that should be aware of how fragile Quintin’s mental equilibrium is, would be the one to break it.

 

“We can’t ignore help when…” Just like Julia to hope that enough knowledge enough information will make this all better. 

 

“She killed Alice.”

 

Q’s voice, dried and crack from disuse is enough to stem the tide of words. Julia bites her lip, her restless fingers reaching for a second towards Quentin’s bowed head, the urge to comfort ingrained and automatic. Reality reasserts, and she discernibly thinks better of it. The grief that Q has been holding in so deep even the application of emotion bottle never released it fully has thickened the air. The memories of Alice; studying, laughing smiling, hang between the two friends as real to everyone present. Behind Julia glass smashes as a bottle disintegrates into frozen shards.

 

The blast startles Eliot into movement, reaching towards Quentin, “Q?”  

 

Quentin is trembling. From his position Eliot can’t see his face just the way his fingers are flexing in unconscious need. In the movement something is growing, not a darkness but a heaviness in the air pressure. From where she stiffens at Quentin’s side, Margo has seen it too her suddenly cold breath misting the air.

 

Julia hasn’t noticed, her need to make this right blinding her to anything else, “This is bigger than us Q you have to….”

 

“Stop.”

 

Against all odds Julia does, her throat convulsing at the cutting off of her words. Her eyes bulging at Quentin’s outstretched hand. There is no finger work, no fancy poppers, just five fingers stretched out in an unconscious display of innate power.

 

Margo pulls on Eliot's arm, trying to pull him away from the two locked figures. Only then does he realise he’s been drifting closer to Quentin. He shrugs off her concern trying to get to Q’s attention.

 

Quentin won’t look him in the eye. His attention solely on Julia, watching as she falls to the floor, his gaze full of all the grief and pain of the last week he’s not let himself feel.  The room is trembling with it. Eliot barely has enough attention to notice Margo stagger, her voice unheeded over the roaring in the air. Julia is still gasping for breath, her eyes pleading with the pillar of the storm that was her best friend, unrecognizable in his grief.

 

“You can forget what She did,” Quentin says, single drop of blood runing from his nose, unnoticed as it curls in the corner of his mouth.  “I can’t. I never want to see you again.”

 

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Julia crumples. The fight goes out of her as she blinks slowly up at Q. Slowly she stands and stumbles towards the door without a word. Quentin watches her go.

 

Margo is scrambling after her, “Julia.”

 

But she makes no reply, letting the door of the cottage close behind her. The snap of the lock snaps Q awake, he blinks up at Eliot. He touches his bloody nose and stares up at his friend as if he will have the answers.

 

“Q?” El asks, proud that his voice only trembles a little. He stretches that last inch, letting his fear give him the bravery to finally touch Quentin’s cheek. As if this was the permission he had been waiting for, Quentin’s eyes roll back into his head and he faints. Only Eliot stopping him from crumpling on the floor as Julia had seconds before.

 

Margo returns to find Eliot pressing his pocket square to Q’s bleeding nose. The aesthetically selected fabric is marred blood and the pressed trousers are crumpled at the knees where Eliot has gently laid Q on the ground, uncaring for anything else.

 

He looks up at her with wild eyes. Only his finger’s pressed to the steady pulse in the sleeping man’s neck keeping him from losing it all. Margo kneels more sedately. His Bambi, perfect and practical, checks to see the blood as stopped flowing, banishing the stained fabric with a few practised flicks of her fingers.

 

“What was that?” she asks when the silence becomes too heavy.

 

“I don’t…” Eliot can’t stop touching Q. Hand flitting between pulse, hands and cheek.

 

“Hey. Look at me.” Margo pulls his hand away, Her tight grip a lightning rod. “We’ve lost too many people, we need to be smart.”

 

“Margo, I…” Eliot gestures to Q’s prone form.

 

Margo shakes her head and gives his hand a gentler squeeze. “Go talk to Fogg, this has time loop bullshit written all over it.”

 

El hesitates.

 

“I’ll stay with Sleeping Beauty.” Margo says, as kindly as she’s able. “Go.”

 

-

 

As he knew he would be, Eliot finds Dean Fogg drinking alone in the dark of his office. The man must have excellent eyesight or a real commitment to the aesthetic.

 

“Something’s wrong with Q.” Eliot sits down him the opposite desk chair without preamble.

 

Fogg bristles, “I fail to see how…”

 

“We know about the time resets,” Eliot is in no mood. He’s left any softness back at the cottage in Margo’s safekeeping, “Cut the crap.”

 

The Dean just sighs and takes a long sip of his Brandy, “What’s wrong with Mr Coldwater now?”

 

“Julia is working with the Hedgewitches.” Eliot explains. Something like understanding dawns in Fogg’s eyes.

 

“Marina,” he murmurs, her name a multi layered memory of curses, “The same Hedgewitch who…”

 

“Killed Alice, Yes.” Eliot says too blunt.

 

The news doesn’t seem to faze Fogg, “Go on.”

 

“When Q found out he was angry,” Eliot explains trying to find the words that’ll make the evening make sense.  “More than that. He made her leave somehow.  I felt something powerful come from him. She left without saying anything. Didn’t even mention Penny or anything.”

 

Dean Fogg says nothing, the pitying déjà vu in his eyes the only indicator that he was even listening.

 

“I need to know. I need to help him. Alice is dead, Kady is gone, Penny’s half-crazy from the Beast and I’m… I have to help him or what’s the point.”

 

Eliot sags into the worn leather of the chair. Wordlessly Fogg pushes the decanter closer to the other side of the desk. Eliot motions a clean glass from the bar and fills it with a generous amount. He needs to be drunker for this conversation, hell, drunker for this whole time loop even.

 

“Didn’t you ever wonder.” Fogg muses, leaning towards Eliot, “why you all rallied around Mr Coldwater so quickly.”

 

Eliot took a long sip and tried to let the burn of alcohol soothe him. He shakes his head, confused by the line of enquiry.

 

Fogg smiles, “He doesn’t have Margo’s leadership, Alice’s aptitude for knowledge, Julia’s raw power, Penny’s skill, Kady’s resilience or even your own...charisma.”

 

Eliot tries not to react at the backhanded compliment and concentrates on the question. He couldn’t think of a satisfactory answer. The idea that he could _not_ have been hopelessly ready to follow Quentin the second he saw him stumble onto the grounds that first day we impossible to comprehend.

 

 “It’s… Well.. he’s Quentin.” Eliot mutters weakly.

 

“He’s Quentin.” Fogg repeats, swirling the Brandy with a flicker of amusement at the answer.

 

“The gods love a story, Eliot. And this one, this one is a doozy. 38 resets and we still can’t find a satisfying enough third act.”

 

“How is that to do with Q, what he did to Julia?” Eliot interrupts, reaching the end of his patience for The Deans theatrics.

 

“I’m getting to it.” Fogg promises, smiling inscrutably at him from across the highly polished wood. Eliot takes another sip and scowls over the rim of his glass.

 

“We wasted so many resets trying to… neutralise Quentin from the quest, but  it never sticks. Jane calls him a volunteer tomato, the stray vine just keeps coming back. But it's more complicated than that.”

 

Fogg motions with his hands as if to encompass the world in his words, “The gods love a story but they are also shockingly lazy when it comes to structure and character.”

 

“I don’t…”

 

“It’s a rare discipline, crops up in interesting times in history, Protagonism. The innate ability to be at the centre of the story.”  Fogg explains, interrupting Eliot's protests.

 

“What does that mean,” Eliot asks, “Q’s a…what?”

 

Fogg sighs, “When you first met Quentin weren't you drawn to him, wanted to help him”

 

Eliot recalls the memory, never far from his heart, of Quentin blinking up at him in the sunlight, enticing in his bewilderment. The way his name had sounded in Eliot’s mouth, how Q had stared at him like a life raft in an ever-shifting sea.

 

“Well, yeah,” Eliot snaps through the abhorrent blush he can feel trying to rise, “but that’s only because…”

 

“Oh, it’s one of those time loops,” Fogg smirks saving Eliot from having to find an un-incriminating ending to that sentence.   “The pining ones, they were the hardest to control.”

 

“Half a dozen timelines we attempted to find a way to train him to use his discipline proactively.” Fogg says, “Jane and I tried all the variables. You’d think teaching a goddamn graduate program I would no longer have to be involved in the love lives of my students but here we are.”

 

“His love life?” Eliot says, the question asked before he can stop himself.

 

Fogg glances at him pityingly, “I’ve been handing you Quentin’s name ‘at the last minute’ for a few timelines now.”

 

At Eliot’s continued confusion Fogg shakes his head, “You know what your like, Eliot,  you see him, you categorize him and let him move on to something else shiny.”

 

He huffs, “Don’t look like that. You survive more time loops that way.”

 

And that answers that, Eliot supposes. Because he’s selfish and petty so of course he thought about it, even before he found out about the time loops. Thought about if in some perfect blue moon world, he and Quentin could have been something. Turns out he never survives Quentin, that shouldn’t really come as a surprise.

 

Fogg is still monologuing, having warmed up to the subject, “The problem with Protagonism is that metagaming never helps anyone. They’re drawn into a story, The Protagonist, without even knowing it. Their values and aims forming the backbone of the tale as they are living it. It draws others in who have sympathetic goals and morals. It has to happen organically, you see.”

 

“But You can’t let the protagonist know they’re the protagonist.” He continues, “The ability to influence others to come together for a common goal has to be subtext. You make it text and you run into problems of ethics and self-determination and that'll bog down the pacing of the best of stories.”

 

Eliot drains the last of the Brandy, too tired and pissed off to savour the taste “Why didn’t you..?”

 

Fogg holds up a hand stemming the oncoming flow of frustrated vitriol roiling on Eliot’s tongue, “We’ve had this conversation in every single one of those twelve resets. It’s honestly quite boring but at least I now know exactly what you’re going to ask.”

 

Eliot barely draws breath to argue before Fogg continues without acknowledging him, holding up an imperious finger to punctuate his point.

 

“Why didn't you tell him? Messing with innate passive abilities causes problems. Like when you’ve always been able to whistle and when someone asks, you to explain how, and ythen ou can no longer do it. When Quentin becomes aware of what he can do he begins to doubt himself. When he begins to doubt himself, he loses control. When he loses control the Beast wins and everyone dies.”

 

Fogg holds up a second finger. “Why can’t we train him? This isn’t like Traveling or Telekinesis. We don’t have a dedicated protagonist on the teaching panel. There is a Beast attacking my school we don’t have time to venture into hypothetical academia. If we get distracted the Beast wins and everyone dies.”

 

A third finger, “He has a right to know. Honestly what you all have a _right_ to know could fill The Library of the Neitherlands and we don’t have time for that because…

 

“The Beast will win, and everyone dies, okay I get it.” Eliot snaps. “So, what he did to Julia...?”

 

Fogg nods, “Quentin can bring people into the narrative, but he can also cut them out, He hasn’t done that for a while. It’s why we stopped trying to get him to use his powers.”

 

“What happened.” Eliot asks, his stomach tightening.

 

“He cut Alice out after her Niffin brother killed you and Julia. She didn’t react well and went after the Beast on her own.”

 

Eliot remembers the blank look in Julia’s eyes after Q banished her, “Why would she do that?”

 

Fogg shakes his head sadly, “It feels good being part of something, doesn’t it? He makes you feel like your efforts are not in vain, that your part of something greater.”

 

He takes Eliot’s inability to look him in the eye as answer enough.

 

“Imagine being cut off from that feeling, remembering it and knowing your forever unable to get it back.”

 

Eliot shivers. The desire to be closer to Quentin was pretty much the background hum of his life, even before Alice died.

 

He wonders if Alice Quinn’s death is always the catalysts that make Eliot Waugh realise how much he loves Quentin Coldwater. He had always hoped that there had been a time loop in which he’d only felt platonic companionship towards Q. In light of what he’s found out it seems unlikely now. Quentin’s superpower is making Eliot love him in any timeline.

 

“When you say he doubts himself,” Eliot asks, “when he discovers his discipline?”

 

“Quentin’s mental health is already… precarious. How much of that is him being a protagonist waiting for a story or his own unique psychology we never got a firm answer. Coming to Brakebills gives him a purpose, a Quest, for want of a better word.”

 

Fogg leans forward, ever the educator, to deliver the salient point in his lecture, “If you tell him that the things that make his life worth living; his magic, his objectives, his friends, they’re all because of an ability he has no control over, not because of anything he’s done, It breaks him.”

 

“That’s Bullshit.” Eliot disagrees, “Those things aren’t separate from him, they _are_ him. “

 

Fogg waves dismissively, “He never sees it that way. What he did to Julia is bad but imagine how bad it could be when he was aware of what he’d done?”

 

Eliot swallows, “What he did to Julia. Will she be okay?”

 

“Hard to say.” Fogg shrugs expansively, “Perhaps Miss Wicker will thrive as an outside force in the story. Perhaps it’ll shake up this narrative rut we’ve fallen into.”

 

He hums in thought before grabbing a pen and quickly scrawling a note. Eliot can only stare as the weight of so many lifetimes lost really hits him.

 

“How can you talk about our lives like that. Like we’re chess pieces not people?”

 

Fogg sets down his pen with a sharp click, “I’m aware you’re people, flawed and stupid people prone to anger and so many mistakes. I’m aware of that, believe me. If you weren't ‘people’ perhaps you’d have a chance against something as powerful and calculating as the Beast. Watching you all fail again and again has disabused me of any notion like that, believe me.  

 

“What do I do then?” Eliot snaps, anger making his voice louder than he means, “I can’t tell him, I can’t help him? You’re the fucking expert, tell me what do I do?”

 

The Dean sighs, and sits back in his chair, rubbing his eyes, looking suddenly tired as Eliot feels “It doesn’t matter Eliot, none of this matters.”

 

Something in the defeated slump of his teachers’ shoulders, the way he was willingly revealing his secrets makes Eliot pause, “You're going to reset the timeline.” he realises, “You’re not even going to give us a chance.”

 

“Resetting,” Fogg corrects, “ _is_ a chance.”

 

Eliot opens his mouth, the impulse to argue swifter than any argument can form. After gasping like a fish for a moment, he mirror’s Fogg’s posture and slumps back in his chair.

 

“When?”

 

Fogg checks his watch “Jane will be here by daybreak. There is nothing you can do. I’m sorry.”

 

-

 

Eliot walks back to cottage in a daze, viewing the familiar places anew in the twilight. The old oak tree where he and Margo talked after flaying themselves open during their Trials, the lawn where they snuck out one night drunk and full of bravado as Julia had tried to get them all to learn how to fly, the statue where Penny and Quentin fought. The Brakebills sign where he’d first seen Quentin, the bench where he’d seen Alice and Quentin together and had to admit to himself what this feeling was.

 

Woof Fountain is still rubble. They haven’t bothered to put caution wards around it. The most recent ghosts are too fresh to stir curiosity. Eliot does not linger.

 

When he sees these sights again he’ll no longer associate them with pain and sadness, or even happiness and belonging. He’ll laugh at the same jokes, cry for the same people, love the same friends. He’ll have no idea he’d done it all before.     

 

He recalls distantly an English lecture long ago, the memory hazy with Indiana sunshine and teenage ennui. _Nostalgia_ : coming for the Greek work for pain of homecoming.

 

The Physical Cottage is beautiful in the dying light. Solid, dependable and the first home he’d ever had.  The happiest memories of all his lives are here. No individual ghosts follow him as he makes his way up the path, just that sweet specific ache of coming home.  

 

Margo is sitting on the stairs, wrapped in a blanket and waiting for him. She doesn’t have to ask before she’s reaching for him, pulling Eliot down into her arms. He settles on the stair bellow, the perfect height to rest his head against her chest. Calming his mind to the beat of her heart.

“Q, is he?”

“Asleep like a baby in his room.” She soothes.

Eliot lets out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding.

“Tell me.” Margo presses a kiss to his forehead.

 

Eliot closes his eyes, “Fogg is resetting the time loop.”

 

This close Eliot feels the slight tremble Margo allows herself, trusting him with the vulnerable breath against his hair, “When?”

 

“Morning” he murmurs. “We have a few hours at least.”

 

They sit in silence, alone together. It’s just like old times. come morning it’ll be the new times, Eliot muses.

 

“What else?” Margo knows him too well.

 

He tells her everything, how could he not.

 

So basically,” He finishes, “The gods are a fickle Nielsen family and Q’s staring in their own Truman show. But if his boat hits the edge of the world things tend to get a bit Community Season five.”

 

Margo, fluent in their two-person language, only needs a moment to parse this. “He’s a Lead Character and when he gets too genre savy…”

 

She trails off, both remembering the blank look on Julia’s face as she walked out.    

 

“What should I do Bambi?” Eliot whispers, the weight of all unsaid that not even Margo could help him bare. “It’s impossible, there is no way we can win this.”

 

“Then fuck it, give up.” Margo offers. “If the gods, Dean Fogg and Jane fucking Chatwin don’t care about this time loop, why should we.”

 

“We’re glamorous, amazing, mega bitches Baby,” Her smile is familiar from this position, but her eyes are just as sad and lost as his,” since when have we cared about anything.”

 

Eliot sits up and embraces her, basking in how perfectly she fits against his chest. “I love you Bambi.”

“I know.” She promises. Margo’s eyes are shining. She kisses the side of his mouth, chaste and sweet in a way she would never risk with anyone else.

 

 “Last night on earth. Better make it a good one.”

 

She motions up the stairs, where the other member of their makeshift family is waiting.

Eliot drapes the blanket over her shoulders, arranging it perfectly like a king in her finery. Leaning over the banister she opens the fridge with a flick of the wrist, regally retrieving a bottle of Bollinger as she descends the stairs.

 

Margo smiles at him from the doorway, “I’ll see you in the next life.” She vows.

 

Eliot stands, mirroring her, “Not if I see you first.”

 

 

-

 

Q is sleeping. Even in rest his face is not still. Eyes are flickering under his eyelids, entranced by personnel horrors Eliot isn’t privy to. When the timeline is resets, Eliot hopes he will never feel this pain of wanting again. He’s lying to himself, he knows but the wee hours before the world ends is really no time for introspection.

 

He kicks off his shoes and climbs into the bed fully clothed. It’s not like he’s going to have to deal with the shirt wrinkles come morning. He tenderly stokes the crease of worry in the middle of Quentin’s forehead.

 

Eliot thinks about all those abandoned attempts, the pruning and editing Fogg and Chatwin had done, were still doing, to get the perfect time loop. He wonders what it would take to get the perfect timeline for him and Q, what would make this real.

 

He embraces his sleeping friend, admiring the delicate eyelashes he’d never had a chance to see so close before.

 

What had Fogg called it, metagaming. If you know you're in the perfect scenario, calculated to get a certain set of results, are those results even real. Hell, is even what he’s feeling now valid, or just a symptom of Quentin’s Protagonism. He watches in rapt devotion as Q’s sighs in his sleep. Elliot's heart stutters as his eyelids slowly flutter open.

 

The sleepy confusion gives way to joy as he smiles up at Eliot. “Hey, where did you go?”

 

He rubs his eyes sleepily. The motion is so childlike so sweet and so purely Q that Eliot can’t hold his doubt. Quentin is Quentin, quintessentially himself, no innate ability or goddamned quest will change how Eliot feels about him.

 

Eliot smiles back, helpless, “I went to see Fogg.”

 

At the mention of the Dean, Q’s face clouds. Eliot watches the minute expressions as Quentin relives the memories of the past hour. “He’s going to be so angry about Julia. I don’t know what happened she just…”

 

Eliot stokes a gentle hand down the small of his back, Quentin quietens under the touch, “It’s alright, he isn’t going to expel you.”

 

It’s funny to think back on those early days when all he had to worry about was if Quentin was going to leave his life for scrapping with Penny. With the benefit of hindsight, Eliot can see why the idea of this shining star coming into his orbit only to plummet just as fast had been so unconscionable.  Perhaps he should have caught on quicker, but that was problem for another life.

 

Quentin doesn’t look convinced, “What did you and Fogg talk about.”

 

What to tell him. Eliot remembers Fogg’s warnings, the blank look in Julia’s eyes before she walked out of their lives, the trickle of blood as Q had used the power he couldn’t comprehend was inside him.

 

“The time loops, mostly.” he admits, the half-truth must be enough.

 

They lapse into silence. The only sound their mingled breathing and Eliot rubbing circles into the sleep warmed fabric on Quentin’s back.

 

“Do you ever think about them,” Eliot asks, “all the lives we’ve led. What we did differently.”

 

Q averts his eyes, his gaze landing on the fragile glass horse on his nightstand, forever frozen mid motion. “Yeah.” he breaths.

 

“Sorry.” Eliot apologises but Quentin cuts him off.

 

“No, you’re right. I’ve screwed up,” He laughs and its short and bitter, “and apparently I’ve screwed up 38 times before.”

 

Eliot pulls him closer, “Hey, No, you don’t know that.”

  
Quentin’s eyes are shining as he looks up at Eliot. He looks so impossibly tired. “Why does it have to be me El. Why does it feel like this is on my shoulders? All I ever wanted was to be a part of Fillory and now it’s real I just can’t get it right.”

He buries his face into Eliot’s chest, shaking apart in Eliot’s arms. It’s all so unfair.

Eliot recalls reading the Fillory books from a distant less shame filled corner of his childhood. There were rules, he dimly remembers, to how that world worked. the Chatwin’s could depend on them. There was always a stalwart mentor, an instructive tome, a cryptic answer from a questing beast. There was accountability and trust that good old fashion British fair play would come up trumps in the end.

That’s the real fiction of it all. Here no one is held to any standards. Mentors will let you down. Even if what Fogg and Jane Chatwin had done to them wasn’t in the same league as the horrors Plover had inflicted on Martin Chatwin, it was still manipulation. Power with no regards to the reality of pain it was going to cause.

It was wrong, that Quentin who believes in magic, in its beauty and it’s force of good, had to be the living proof that it isn’t so. That for the first time in his life he would draw the people and power needed to make his dream a reality. And it was for nothing. 

 _Fillory doesn’t deserve you_ , Eliot swears, inhaling the scent of Quentin’s hair, hoping that Quentin can feel his love, through their touching skin and any bond they have formed over their lives.      

Margo’s words echo in his mind, _Fuck it, give up._

  

“You don’t owe the world shit Q.” Eliot promises

 

That shocks a hiccupping laugh out of Quentin, “That’s not responsible when the world is at stake.”

 

Eliot rubs a thumb over Quentin’s chin, where his tears has left his skin shiny in the low light. “I don’t care about the world I care about you.”

 

Q open’s his mouth, but the words don’t come. He averts his eyes and the question is lost to time. “Sorry,” he mumbles choosing self-depression instead of bravery, “I sound so self-centred don’t I.”

 

“You don’t have to convince me you’re special Q.” Eliot promises. It’s an easy joke, the typical smoke and mirror emotion obfuscation that Quentin must have come to expect from him. But in the intimacy of the dying light Eliot’s attempt to lighten the mood feels too close to the raw edges of the truth to be comforting.     

 

“I’m just saying,” Eliot offers tucking an errant strand of hair behind Q’s ear, “you don’t have to be the hero of the story, you know. Perhaps this is an ensemble cast and we’re all just as important. Let someone else drive the narrative for a change.”

 

“I don’t understand what you’re saying right now.” Quentin admits, snuggling closer, hiding his fond smile into the side of Eliot’s neck.

 

Eliot smiles, carding his fingers through Quentin’s hair. “That’s okay. Just trust that I’m very knowledgeable in these areas.”

 

Quentin hums, the vibration warm against Eliot’s pulse. They lie together in comfortable silence. Eliot wonders where Margo plans to spend the rest of this life. He amuses himself with the image of her sitting under the lanterns, where they’d all shared the night watching Julia fly through the sky. It seems so long ago now.

 

In his mind’s eye he can see her now, his Bambi. The blanket around her shoulders and bottle of Champagne in hand, the only sceptre and cloak she ever needs. He hopes she’s happy wherever she is.    

 

Quentin stirs, shifting slightly so he can look up at Eliot, “This is nice. Have we done this before.”

 

Eliot remembers that night, with Julia swooping overhead and everything brighter and easer after a bottle of wine, “I hope so.”

 

“Julia’s never going to want to speak to me again.”

 

Eliot kisses Quentin’s forehead. Words are overrated anyway.

 

“She’ll be over it by the morning.” He promises.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the original fic i first sat down to right for this fandom/pairing, its not even the 2nd or 3rd but it's the one that I got invested in writing, despite it ballooning in size. 
> 
> It's my first venture into this fandom so please be kind. Any comments you have are gratefully recieved.
> 
> I can be found at [pigeonstatueconundrum/a>, come say hello.](http://pigeonstatueconundrum.tumblr.com/)


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